35 Stunning Photos Of Abandoned Russia You’ve Probably Never Seen Before

Across the vastness of Russia—the world’s largest country, at some 6.6 million square miles—and over the span of its long history, countless houses, factories, churches, villages, military bases, and other structures have been built and then left behind: imperial-era palaces, log cabins of pioneers in the Far East, Christian cathedrals, massive Soviet blocks of concrete, speculative-mining camps, and more. For years now, photographers have traveled across Russia finding and photographing these intriguing ghost towns, empty Soviet factories, toppling houses, and crumbling chapels.

Here: A drone photo of the collapsing Von Meck Estate in Khruslovka, Venyovsky district, Tula Oblast, south of Moscow, taken on May 27, 2016. (Vadim Razumov / Wikipedia)

The ruins of an old pulp and paper mill on Sakhalin Island. (Gribov Andrei Aleksandrovich / Shutterstock)

The overgrown ruins of an industrial building in the Voronezh region. (Vladimir Mulder / Shutterstock)

A derelict dock stands in front of a volcanic structure on Atlasova Island, which is part of the Kuril Islands. (Janelle Lugge / Shutterstock)

A seal colony on the shores of the abandoned Tulenyi Island, which is in the Kuril Islands. (Janelle Lugge / Shutterstock)

An old giant dome of a radar antenna, part of a former antiballistic-missile system in Naro-Fominsk. (Saoirse2013 / Shutterstock)

A drone view of an abandoned building of a former restaurant on top of Mount Akhun in Sochi. (Vadim Fedotov / Shutterstock)

Kalyazin Church, also called the “Flooded Belfry,” standing alone in the Uglich Reservoir. This structure is all that remains of the old town of Kalyazin, which was submerged when a dam was built in in 1939. (Kichigin / Shutterstock)

An aerial view taken with a drone on October 30, 2017 shows the neglected estate of Grebnevo, east of Moscow. (Andrei Borodulin / AFP / Getty)

The ghost town of Ugolny Ruchei, a former coal-mining site, near Norilsk. (Constantine Vladimirovich / Shutterstock)

The Church Of The Nativity, Krokhino, Vologda Oblast. (Kemal Kozbaev / Wikimedia)

A decaying industrial building of a Soviet electronics factory in Novovoronezh. (Vladimir Mulder / Shutterstock)

A destroyed center for social and cultural activities for Soviet citizens, captured in early morning fog, in Kotelnich, Kirov Oblast. (Mikhail Starodubov / Shutterstock)

Abandoned ships of the Russian federal fleet are seen at the repair-operational base of the river fleet of the Yenisei river shipping company in Podtyosovo village, about 350 km (217 miles) north of Russia’s Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, June 15, 2013. Yenisei, one of the largest river systems in the world which rises in Mongolia and flows into the Arctic ocean, is the life artery for the residents populating its banks. (Ilya Naymushin / Reuters)

Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in the village of Novinki, in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. (Pukhov K / Shutterstock)